1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus using a microlens array.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various image pickup apparatuses have been proposed and developed in the past. Moreover, an image pickup apparatus performing predetermined image processing on image pickup data obtained by picking up an image to output the image pickup data has been proposed.
For example, in International Patent Publication No. 06/039486 and Ren.Ng, et al. “Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera”, Stanford Tech Report CTSR 2005-02, an image pickup apparatus using a technique called “Light Field Photography” is proposed. The image pickup apparatus includes an image pickup lens, a microlens array, an image pickup device and an image processing section, and an aperture stop including a single aperture in its central part is included in the image pickup lens. By such a configuration, image pickup data obtained by the image pickup device include the intensity distribution of light on a light-sensing plane as well as information about the traveling direction of the light. Then, the image processing section is capable of reproducing an image viewed from an arbitrary viewpoint or an arbitrary direction (hereinafter, simply referred to as a field of view).